Emotion estimation apparatus and emotion estimation method
AssigneesHonda Motor Co., Ltd., Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties, Inc.
InventorsAya Sasaki, Tomoaki Ohashi, Nariaki Kuriyama, Feng Guo, Shu Han, Boyu Jiang, Manhua Wang, Liang Shi
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An emotion estimation apparatus includes a biological information detection unit that detects biological information of a driver of a target vehicle, an environment detection unit that detects environment information of a surrounding area of the target vehicle, and an emotion estimation unit that estimates a strong emotion of the driver based on the biological information and the environment information.
Claims7
An emotion estimation apparatus, comprising:
- a processor, wherein the processor:
- detects biological information of a driver of a target vehicle;
- detects environment information of a surrounding area of the target vehicle, the environment information including a region where the target vehicle is located, road conditions, how the driver grips a steering wheel, time information indicating a time of day such as daytime or nighttime, in-vehicle environment information indicating a presence or absence of a passenger, and weather information;
- and
- estimates a degree of a strong emotion of the driver, the strong emotion is an emotion that influences thoughts or behavior of the driver, based on the biological information and the environment information,
- wherein the processor estimates the degree of the strong emotion by calculating a sum of odds ratios for each item of the environment information based on an environment-emotion table indicating a relationship between the environment information and the odds ratio indicating how much higher a probability is of the driver experiencing the strong emotion that is the emotion that influences the thoughts or behavior of the driver as compared to an ideal condition for each item of the environment information, and
- wherein the processor controls at least one of a drive unit, a steering unit, and a braking unit of the target vehicle in accordance with the estimated degree of the strong emotion.
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An emotion estimation method executed by a computer, the emotion estimation method comprising:
- a biological information detection step of detecting biological information of a driver of a target vehicle;
- an environment detection step of detecting environment information of a surrounding area of the target vehicle, the environment information including a region where the target vehicle is located, road conditions, how the driver grips a steering wheel, time information indicating a time of day such as daytime or nighttime, in-vehicle environment information indicating a presence or absence of a passenger, and weather information;
- an emotion estimation step of estimating a degree of a strong emotion of the driver, the strong emotion is an emotion that influences thoughts or behavior of the driver, based on the biological information and the environment information;
- and
- a control step of controlling at least one of a drive unit, a steering unit, and a braking unit of the target vehicle in accordance with the estimated degree of the strong emotion, wherein
- in the emotion estimation step, the degree of the strong emotion is estimated by calculating a sum of odds ratios for each item of the environment information based on an environment-emotion table indicating a relationship between the environment information and the odds ratio indicating how much higher a probability is of the driver experiencing the strong emotion that is the emotion that influences the thoughts or behavior of the driver as compared to an ideal condition for each item of the environment information.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.